Saturday, February 16, 2013

"Perfect Hatred"

Leighton Gage’s books are crime novels set in Brazil. The author has lived in Australia, Europe, and South America and traveled widely in Asia and Africa. He visited Spain in the time of Franco, Portugal in the time of Salazar, South Africa in the time of apartheid, Chile in the time of Pinochet, Argentina in the time of the junta, Prague, East Germany, and Yugoslavia under the Communist yoke. He and his wife spend much of the year in a small town near São Paulo, and the rest in Europe and the United States, where they have children and grandchildren.

In the five previous books in my series about the Brazilian Federal Police, Chief Inspector Mario Silva threatens criminals, but almost never, except in the heat of the moment, comes under threat himself.

There’s an expression in Brazil that translates as “rich people don’t go to jail” – and, within a justice system in which lawmen, prosecutors and judges could often be bribed, it long held true.

Now, things are changing.

Orlando Muniz, a landowner, whom we first met in Blood of the Wicked, runs a real risk of going to prison unless he can eliminate the principal witness against him.

And that witness is Chief Inspector Mario Silva.

Being the wealthiest of men, Orlando isn’t the kind of man who would undertake a murder himself. As in virtually everything else in his life, he hires others to do it for him.

On page 69 of Perfect Hatred, he’s doing just that, hiring a killer, and introducing a new thread into a story that already has several other ones running at the same time.